Of great concern currently are the high treason charges brought against Tsvangirai by the Zimbabwean police after a video surfaced which allegedly shows Tsvangirai discussing a plot to assassinate Mugabe. Two other members of the MDC (Welshman Ncube and Renson Gasela) were also charged.

These elections have not been happy ones. Initially Mugabe refused to have international observers in the country to monitor the elections and even wanted to ban all foreign media from Zimbabwe. After pressure by the European Union (which eventually led to limited sanctions being imposed on Mugabe and his inner circle) some international observers were allowed.

Mugabe has been in power for 22 years and in that time Tsvangirai has been the strongest opposition to him that Zimbabwe has produced.
He was born in 1952, the son of a bricklayer. He worked as a textile weaver
and then as a miner. Soon he was leading the mining union and by the late
1980s was head of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). Tsvangirai is
the founder member of the MDC which formed in 1999.

Zimbabwe is a rich country which can contribute tremendously to the development of Southern Africa, but while politicians like Tsvangirai are inhibited in contesting elections fairly there seems to be very little hope of the country emerging out from underneath the shadow of "Mad Bob".

For more on the elections see http://www.iol.co.za/html/news/zimbabwe/index.php